GoDaddy Petitions to Block .com Deal

Domain name registrar GoDaddy.com said Monday that it had filed a petition with the Department of Commerce to block an agreement between ICANN and VeriSign. The company said it wanted the deal sent back to the Internet's governing body to ensure fairer terms on the stewardship of the .com top-level domain.

GoDaddy said that it, along with a majority of .com registrars, believe the terms of the agreement are unacceptable. VeriSign would be able to raise registration fees without justification in four of the next seven years, and retains "presumptive renewal" rights when the agreement ends in 2012.

While VeriSign and ICANN have accepted the settlement, the deal still requires final approval by the Department of Commerce. Thus, GoDaddy and others have decided to complain directly to the government body in a last-ditch effort to scuttle the deal.

"We will not sit back without a fight. This deal is outrageous," GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons said. "It's monopolistic because it locks in price hikes and eliminates good old-fashion competition. It's a mistake [Commerce] Secretary Gutierrez can stop."

A majority of public comments solicited by ICANN were against the deal, the company points out. Still, less than a week after the close of the commenting period ICANN released terms of a deal that, on the surface, look extremely favorable to VeriSign.

In a letter sent to Secretary Gutierrez on Friday, Parsons said that ICANN acted contrary to its stated purpose in the organizations bylaws by keeping the negotiations largely a closed process, and failed to address many of concerns of the public brought up during the comment period in the settlement.

"ICANN has lost the trust of the community," Parsons told Gutierrez.

The Department of Commerce has set no timeframe for final approval of the settlement, however a decision is expected within the next several months.

VeriSign responded to the petition in a harsh statement Monday, citing the complicated infrastructure required to run the .com domain.

"It is unfortunate that the registrars are placing their own narrow interests above the operational stability and security of the Internet. Usage of .com has quadrupled in the last five years and attacks on the infrastructure have grown in volume and sophistication," VeriSign spokesman Tom Galvin said.

"Unfortunately, these registrars take no responsibility for the Internet’s reliability."